<p>I took AP Calc AB and BC in high school and got 5s on all the exams. Would it be better for me to start in Calc 2 or 3 if I'm going into electrical engineering? I've spoken to a couple EEs and they say it's better to start in 2.</p>
<p>Just my opinion, but I’d start in 2. College Math departments sometimes stress different things in their earlier courses than the AP exams do and it is easy to find yourself behind from the get go in those situations. </p>
<p>Huh, the opposite is said on my campus. Calculus II is generally the most intensive of the series. Why create extra work for yourself if you have mastered the material? Start in Calculus III. </p>
<p>Try talking to your advisor at college. Also some colleges have placement tests. There is nothing wrong with doing Calc 2 again…but if they recommend Cald 3 then that is cool too. It will have no impact on future employments/gradschool. </p>
<p>I would strongly suggest starting in Calc II. I’ve seen a lot of students at my school come out of high school and go right into Calc III, and fail horribly because their high school calculus skipped over a lot of important material. </p>
<p>Calc II is a rough class. It’s the hardest of the sequence in my experience. College courses often go into a lot more depth and rely on more of a true understanding and comprehension of the material. You’re going into a mathematically intensive field, and having a more rigorous understanding of the methods of integration that are introduced in Calc II could only be beneficial. </p>
<p>Calc III. It’s easier, and if you know how to integrate, you’ve basically gotten all you need out of Calc II.</p>
<p>3 for prereqs sake and your graduation date.
More importantly, you should pick up DEs for electrical engineering first or at the same time :)</p>
<p>–I don’t know if a review in Calculus II even helps you significantly with Calculus III… :/</p>
<p>If you are not sure whether to use your AP credit to skip calculus 2, then look for old final exams for calculus 2 at your college and try them. Use the result of trying them to assess your knowledge of the course material from the college’s point of view. If you know the material well, take calculus 3. If you have major gaps in your knowledge or struggle with the problems, repeat this process with old final exams for calculus 1 to determine placement in calculus 1 or 2. If you have minor gaps in your knowledge but otherwise know the material well, take calculus 3 but self-study the gap material.</p>
<p>Starting in a more advanced course does give the advantage of freeing up some schedule space later for another free elective.</p>
<p>If your Calculus II class is similar to most, then taking it will be a complete waste of time. Computing integrals by hand is an archaic technique from the times without computer algebra systems, similar to computing logarithms and trig functions by hand (has anyone here actually learned how to do that?). The AP exams in my opinion do a superior job in testing understanding of the concepts of calculus compared to college exams (professors generally do not have as much time as the AP writers to make up creative problems), and you’ve already demonstrated strong understanding of the concepts.</p>
<p>If the professor teaching Calculus III is known for writing exams that rely on a lot of algebra tricks and the like then starting with Calculus II would be a good way to prepare for this. Otherwise I would go straight into Calculus III - you won’t be deficient on the concepts required.</p>